Mother and gardener Peyton (@mama_peyy) had a great tip for reusing kitchen scraps and improving the garden. Here's what she had to say to her TikTok followers. 

The scoop

"Banana peels = secret plant booster!" she wrote in the caption of her video. "Don't toss 'em, turn them into fertilizer magic. Your garden will thank you!"

@mama_peyy Banana peels = secret plant booster! 👩🏽‍🌾🪴 Don't toss 'em 🍌turn them into fertilizer magic. Your garden will thank you! Follow along for more gardening tips ✨ #gardening #beginnergardener #containergarden #containergardening #gardeningtips ♬ A Happy Farm - codemusic

Peyton then simply put some spare banana peels into her watering can, let them soak for 24 hours, and fed her little plant babies. 

Some gardeners have baked banana peels and ground them into a powder to distribute, while others vouch for the whole peels as aphid repellent. 

How it's helping

Using all-natural fertilizer like this is great for a couple of reasons. For one, it diverts food scraps from the landfill. Once there, they emit methane as they decompose, which heats up the atmosphere and exacerbates destructive weather patterns like floods and droughts. 

Those kinds of disruptions have been raising grocery prices. Avoiding all of that while getting better gardening yields is a big win. 

All-natural fertilizer is also better than the alternative. Using harsher chemical fertilizers can damage soil health by burning away a useful subsurface microbiome. Those chemicals also wash out and cause ecosystem damage downstream. 

Commercial fertilizers are known to cause algal blooms, which exhaust the oxygen supply around them and choke out other aquatic life. This process is known as eutrophication.  

Needless to say, being exposed to these harsh chemicals isn't good for human health, either, especially if they're being applied to edible plants. 

Growing your own food, like Peyton, also has its upsides. Transportation accounts for about 20% of a food's emissions, according to a study published in the journal Nature Food. But that doesn't apply when you're picking it right out of your backyard. Since that food is fresh, it's more nutritious, too. 

What is the biggest reason you don't grow food at home? Not enough time ⏳ Not enough space 🤏 It seems too hard 😬 I have a garden already 😎 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

What everyone's saying

Peyton's TikTok followers were keen to put their scrap banana peels to work in the garden. 

"I didn't know that! Definitely going to try," said one follower. 

"That's such a neat trick friend thank you for the tip," said another community member.

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